The Jihad Strikes Again

It’s now Wednesday night.  Sunday – four days ago – we began hearing of a mass shooting in Orlando, Florida.  When cataclysmic events shake our world, I prefer not to comment on them immediately.  I prefer to stand back and chew on what I hear from all sides as information comes to light.  And then, think about it.  That’s not to say that I am not given to coming to quick conclusions.  I’m just as prone to that ‘affliction’ as everyone else.  But in my public role I feel responsible to be careful, and to slowly take in the facts as they develop. 

Other public figures are inclined to do this.  But in some cases, in particular with politicians, they are forced by their roles to say something quickly.  That’s why the inane – to some – reactions offering ‘thoughts and prayers.’  They feel forced to say something, but are loath to rush to judgement.  But the electorate, in the main, is not interested in caution:  they want some kind of judgement, and they want it yesterday.

On the political scene today are a number of figures who seem to relish making quick judgements, and making them as loudly as possible.  One of these is, of course, the President of the United States.  President Obama has been famous for speaking out with his interpretation of events, and what he asserts to be their cause and the prescription for stopping recurrences, without waiting at all.  When he does, he is usually cheered by his supporters and criticized by his detractors, as one would expect.  After all, those who are inclined to agree with him will find his words more compelling than the ‘thoughts and prayers’ reactions, and those whose own quick judgements lead them in a different direction will wish he had held his peace until more facts came out.

In ‘the Opposition’ the King of the Quick Judgements is, of course, Republican candidate for President, Donald Trump.  And the reactions to Trump’s statements of quick judgements are, of course, the mirror image of those for Obama.  Those inclined to support Trump will always cheer his ability to ‘cut through the BS’ while those more in line philosophically with President Obama will always react negatively.

Of course we saw this, in spades, this week after the horrific killing of 49 and wounding, some critically, of another 50-some patrons of Pulse, a gay bar in Orlando.

President Obama immediately interpreted this as a symptom of the nation’s being awash in guns, and therefore his immediate reaction was a call for more gun control measures.

Trump immediately interpreted this as a symptom of the nation’s being endangered by the Muslim jihad, and therefore his immediate reaction was a renewed call for a ban on Muslims entering the USA.

Of course, these weren’t the only two interpretations possible.  Another group saw it as an anti-gay act of violence; their immediate reaction was to called for a cessation of ‘homophobia.’

The problem, of course, is that this particular atrocity was all three.  Any reaction that could possibly lead to a thwarting of recurrences has to acknowledge this fact, look towards action or actions prioritized to the relative dangers from all three phenomena.

I think that, given the facts that have emerged, those calling for acknowledging that this is an act of jihad are closest to the truth in this case.  The terrorist, Omar Mateen, has a long history of anti-Western, pro-jihadi leanings.  By the way, I prefer not to use the meaningless term ‘gunman.’  When I go to the range to practice firing my weapons, I’m a ‘gunman.’  When somebody takes an AR-15 and a semiautomatic pistol into a nightclub and spills the blood of over 100 people, he’s a ‘terrorist.’  Anyway, the terrorist Mateen has a yichus (that’s a Jewish term meaning ‘pedigree’) for anti-Western hate in that his father, an Afghan-born immigrant who came to the USA during the time of the Soviet invasion and occupation of that country, is a vocal, long-time Taliban sympathizer.  He’s also something of a flake, but that’s another story.  As you remember, it was the Afghan Taliban who gave refuge to Osama bin laden and his Al Qaida forces.  In addition to this, Mateen’s statements to co-workers and friends, led the FBI to question him about jihadi associations.  The Feds didn’t have enough to pursue him, but at about that time he made two trips to Saudi Arabia – not during Haj.  He was questioned by the FBI again, concerning his association with an American who perpetrated a bloody truck bombing in Syria; again, the investigators didn’t think they had enough to pursue him.  Finally, in recent years he has been a student of Dwayne Robertson, a convert to Islam who has done prison time for various crimes and who openly spews anti-Western hate.

Given all this, and given Mateen’s repeated calls to 911 and an Orlando TV station while he was killing people at Pulse, where he attributed the inspiration for his spree to Da’esh (the Islamic State, sometime called ISIS or ISIL), I don’t think it profits anybody or any cause to see this as anything other than an act of jihadi violence.  That he chose a gay bar, only supports this narrative.  That Mateen frequented this bar as a patron, and used gay dating sites, is an interesting sidebar and makes one wonder if he chose his target as an expression of self-loathing because he needed to exorcise his own homosexual tendencies.  Whether this is the case, we’ll probably never know.

But the idea that this was nothing more than a flare up of homophobia – by either a straight person or by a closet gay who could not reconcile this fact about himself – is not going to help us, as a nation, to make sense of this.  There have been far too many acts of violence against LGBT people solely because of their sexuality.  Acts of murder for the ‘crime’ of one’s sexual orientation are terrible atrocities.  But to treat this as such, is not helpful.  There is just too much evidence that Islamic jihad is the motivating factor here.  In addition to all the above, it is now Ramadan when the jihadis often feel motivated to become active.  And Da’esh has specifically called upon its supporters to strike hard at the West, anywhere and everywhere, during this season.  Mateen’s act goes along with murderous acts by other Da’esh sympathizers in the past two weeks.

Concerning the America awash in guns angle, I think that is a good subject for a separate post…again, perhaps better tackled after tempers from this act of violence calm down a bit.

Many of my colleagues in the Reform rabbinate, and other liberal sectors of Judaism in the USA, have joined together in displays of solidarity with LGBT people, and with Muslims to prevent a call to arms against them.  It is not my position to criticize such acts.  I agree that we should stand against anti-gay violence, and that we should curb our tendencies to tar all Muslims with the jihadi label.

But I believe that such demonstrations miss the point.  Sunday’s atrocity was specifically a Radical Muslim attack against gays.  And while any violence committed against Muslim communities as a reaction to an event like this would be a terrible crime, frankly I don’t see that happening.  The truth is that, even after the 9-11 attacks of 2001, there were only limited acts of religiously-motivated violence against Muslims.  According to statistics gathered by the FBI, there was a spike in anti-Muslim violence in the years following 2001.  But in every year since 9-11, the top two targets of religiously-motivated violence in the USA have been the same two groups who had the ‘top two’ distinction in the years leading up to 9-11:  namely, Jews and Catholics.  Anti-Muslim violence is simply not a pattern in American life.  So, I have nothing against affirming that American Muslims are our neighbors and do not deserve to live in fear because of what some Muslims have done, or might do to their fellow Americans.  But I think the stronger imperative right now is to acknowledge the source of this and other attacks, admit that we are under siege by the jihad, and put our heads together to come up with sensible measures to make Americans safer.  That we do not, is so counter-intuitive that it feeds the kind of sentiment like the groundswell of support for Donald Trump’s proposal on a ban against Muslims entering the country.  Many Americans find such sentiments a poor reflection of our nation, and I agree.  But if we do not confront the very real threat to our safety by the jihad, we will only see such sentiment increase – and win the day.